


Wisteria

by remanth



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, dark!john, wisteria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a favor to Mycroft for helping him with everything after he'd "died", Sherlock takes on a case. What he never expected was the criminal behind the case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wisteria

There were plants Sherlock knew and kept in his mind palace. Mainly poisons and the like, such as belladonna and nightshade. Then there were the plants that he knew mostly because they were so common and people never shut up about them. Roses headed that category along with carnations. And then there were the plants that never crossed his mind, he wouldn’t recognize even if he saw them, and he would forget right away if anyone told him. Wisteria used to be part of that extensive list. Not anymore.

“What, nothing to say, Sherlock?” John asked, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He was standing hipshot, one hand on the outthrust hip and the other holding a gun trained on Sherlock’s chest. That hand didn’t shake in the slightest. “No kiss now that you’ve come back from the dead? That’s a little sad, really. Remember when I came back from that week-long conference and you kissed me for an hour straight? Surely this meeting rates at least one kiss.”

Sherlock didn’t reply, mind feeling like it was moving through molasses. His eyes skipped from John’s face, to the gun in his hand, to the flowers growing in the garden around him. He hadn’t expected to meet John here today. Hadn’t expected to meet John at all, considering the man he thought he’d been chasing. And damn Mycroft for giving him this case without fully explaining all the details. Shying away from deducing John, Sherlock studied the wisteria flowers to his left. They were a fall of purple blossoms from the bush to the green grass below. The scent was light, barely there and wafted away with the slightest breeze. Sherlock found them surprisingly distracting. Though, maybe not so surprising considering what he didn’t want to see.

“Come now, Sherlock, say something,” John wheedled, stepping closer to Sherlock and making little beckoning motions with the gun. “After all I did to find you again and you have nothing to say? I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”

“John,” Sherlock whispered, the only word he could work past his closed throat. “John, why?”

“Why? _Why?_ ” John repeated, a flash of anger in his eyes. His finger tightened convulsively on the trigger on the second word. Sherlock braced for the impact of the bullet, barely managing to keep his eyes open. John noticed the movement and relaxed his finger on the trigger. It was too soon yet to end it all. If that’s where he decided to take this meeting. “I loved you, Sherlock. I loved you and you loved me. We had a good life together, you and me. Chasing after criminals, solving puzzles. Twitting your brother when he got too arrogant. Then you go and jump off a roof right in front of me. All because of that damned Moriarty. We could have fixed it, Sherlock. We could have made everything all right. Instead, you choose to die and rip out my heart.”

“I did it to protect you,” Sherlock argued hoarsely, swallowing hard to get any words out at all. His heart was beating so quickly and his stomach was twisted all into knots. This was not how he’d imagined his first meeting with John to go. Indeed, he’d planned on kissing the man senseless for at least several hours before moving on to other things. Missing him had been a constant ache in Sherlock’s gut and mind, like the feeling of something vital being stripped from him. “I only jumped because Moriarty had snipers on everyone I loved. On _you_ , John. Had I not, you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade would be dead.”

“ _Protect_ me,” John sneered, shaking his head. The gun never wavered, though, and Sherlock was forcibly reminded of the first time John had shot someone for him. His hand had never wavered then either. “I didn’t need protecting. I needed to know what was going on. I could have helped you. But no. No, you were too involved in the damn game between you and Moriarty. It wasn’t for the likes of me, was it?”

Sherlock shook his head, glancing over to the wisterias again. He could feel a new addition to his mind palace, a flowering bush placed right in the middle of one of the rooms. The blooms here were in three different shades of purple, the lightest closest to the bush and graduating to the darkest at the bottom of the plant. And here and there, a few blooms were the red of fresh blood. They dripped every once in a while, a sweet-smelling nectar just a few shades darker than the blooms themselves. There was nothing he could do to stop that plant being added to his mind palace nor the associations with it. And if he died here, if John pulled that trigger and killed him, his blood would drip just like the reddish nectar from the red flowers.

“It’s not that, John, it was never that,” Sherlock said. He raised a hand towards John, started to step towards him, but stopped when John shook the gun menacingly. There didn’t seem to be anything of the man he remembered left. It was all gone, replaced with this darker version. With a man who liked to kill. “Moriarty knew that to get to me, he had to go through you. I thought the pool made that amply clear. He was jealous of the relationship we had, the connection. As long as I only kept you involved in the periphery, he was content to leave you mostly alone. He had no qualms with killing nor with ordering it done. I’d hoped that once I appeared to die, I could deal with the rest of his network. I always planned to come back to you, John. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t change anything,” John shook his head, a note of sorrow entering his voice. It didn’t do anything to change the cold and distant expression on his face though. “I thought you were dead. I mourned for you even when I begged you not to be dead. After a time, Greg involved me in some cases again, cold cases that were just sitting around gathering dust. I decided, why not? I’ve watched you and helped you before so I know some of your methods. I went through the cold cases and gave Greg enough to find new leads. So I became a consulting detective too. Not as good as you but I held my own.”

“I’m proud of the fact that you did,” Sherlock replied, trying to smile and failing miserably. It lit a bright spot in his chest that John wanted to do what he did after he was gone. That John had tried to hold onto his memory by becoming what he had been. “I’m sure you were better than most of the inspectors at Scotland Yard. But why move past that? Why become _this_? This is what we used to chase, used to capture.”

“That’s exactly why,” John replied sharply, tilting his head to the side as he studied Sherlock. He dropped the gun to his side, intent on explaining before doing anything else. By this point, had Sherlock been planning anything, he would have done it. John knew the man well enough to know when he was curious and when he would listen. In the time they were together, he’d gotten as good at reading Sherlock as Sherlock was at reading others. “I started out small, you know. Killing a criminal we were chasing. It was all ruled acceptable, self-defense, blah blah blah. Saved a kid in the process. Probably saved Greg’s life too as he’d put his body between the kidnapper and the kid when the guy lunged with a knife. After everything settled down, it got me thinking. It was so easy to pull the trigger, to end his life. I didn’t even have nightmares after. I’d killed him to protect. But then I remembered, he was the type of man you used to hunt. Moriarty was the type of man who got your attention and thrilled you. So, in order to coax you back, I’d become like him.”

“Oh, John, you never needed to coax me back,” Sherlock murmured, heart breaking at the explanation John was giving him. “I was always coming back. There was nothing short of my actual death that was going to keep me from you.”

“But you were dead at the time, remember?” John said lightly, moving to a bench next to the wisteria plant and sitting down. He gestured politely for Sherlock to sit, crossing one leg over the other. He waited until Sherlock had settled himself gingerly on the other end of the bench before taking a deep breath. “Anyways, I knew I had to move slowly or Greg was going to catch on. So I started taking less and less cases, saying that I was working on something on my own. I wasn’t lying. And I started hunting people on my own. The rapists, kidnappers, murderers. No one was safe. It got easier and easier, so much more fun with each person killed. Greg even tried to call me in on my own murders. Mycroft came around a few times, saying he wanted to check on me. I think he knew but he had no proof. I was very careful, Sherlock. I never left any evidence behind me.”

“It is the sort of case I would have been fascinated by,” Sherlock admitted, the words dragged slowly from his mouth. He glanced at John and wished he could reach out. Could touch. Could wrap his arms around the man he loved and forget the past. Forget everything he’d had to do and give up to reach this point. “I’m sure Mycroft knew. He’s the one who gave me this case when I finally came back to London.”

“I thought he might have,” John nodded in satisfaction, grinning. “It’s not often one can throw one over Mycroft. It was difficult too, avoiding all the cameras. I don’t even know what my body count is as I never bothered to keep track. I just knew that with enough bodies, enough mystery and intrigue surrounding them, you’d come back. And here you are.”

“Yes, here I am,” Sherlock said, standing up and turning away from John. He felt tears gathering in his eyes and fought them back. Now wasn’t the time to break down, not when he could see Mycroft’s men creeping closer through the park. Not when they were about to arrest John. “I’m so sorry, John. I wish I had come back sooner. Just remember that this truly isn’t who you are. You are a protector, a healer. And I love you.”

Sherlock walked away as the first man reached John. He ignored the sounds of yelling when the gun was plucked from John’s hands and he was forcibly lifted from the bench. He had nearly reached the first bend in the path when John screamed his name, the sound of handcuffs clicking nearly lost in the din. But Sherlock heard it all, heard everything of what was going on behind him. Heard the muffled sobs John broke out in and the broken repetitions of his name. 

As John was led away, presumably to be taken to jail and eventually to stand trial for his crimes, Sherlock stopped underneath a tree and let the tears fall. More wisteria lined the path here, purple blurring away as he cried. This wasn’t what he’d hoped to come home to, wasn’t what he’d expected at all. This was the end of everything he’d hoped for. There was no coming back from this for John. Mycroft wouldn’t help him. And Sherlock knew that the only reason Mycroft had given him this case in the first place was so that Sherlock himself would put all the pieces together and realize it was John. He wouldn’t have believed otherwise. As he leaned against the tree and let the tears fall, Sherlock heard footsteps come up behind him. He recognized the cadence and resolutely ignored the owner.

“I’m sorry, Sherlock,” Mycroft said softly. “If there had been any other way, you know I would have taken it.”

“You could have stopped him,” Sherlock snapped harshly, voice broken. “You knew it was him. You should have stopped him.”

“I didn’t want to believe it at first,” Mycroft replied. “I didn’t believe that John could have done all of this. And once I did, it was too late to stop him. He’d gotten a taste for it. The only thing we can do is go on from here.”

“That’s what you can do,” Sherlock said, wiping his face and straightening. “I have nothing to go on to. My reputation is connected to John’s, especially with our relationship. People will connect us now and I doubt I’ll be getting any more clients. I’m going home, Mycroft. Your case is done and my debt to you is repaid.”

Sherlock walked away before Mycroft could reply, shoulders stiff. He wished John could have been at the flat, that he could have surprised him. There would have been anger and shouting at first but that would have faded away. Then there would have been love and joy. And now there was nothing. An empty flat echoing with the past and what could have been. With what they both had become.


End file.
